Author: Dave Farquhar

The legend of Mt. Fuji

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , ,

Twenty years ago, I was a promising young–and very unseasoned–columnist for a student newspaper at the University of Missouri–home of the Tigers–called The Maneater. Get it? Tiger? Maneater? Actually, healthy tigers never resort to eating humans, but legend has it by the time the founder learned that, the newspaper was already publishing and it was too late to change the name.

We were a ragtag bunch putting together a newspaper on a shoestring. Our computer network was quirkier than our staff, which took a great deal of doing–trust me, I’m used to being the weirdest guy in the room, and there I didn’t even stand out–but the piece of equipment that probably gives the production crew the most nightmares to this day was an old Apple Laserwriter–don’t ask me the specific model–named Mt. Fuji. Read more

The Logitech F310 on Retropie

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , ,

I went looking for a reliable, modern controller to use on my Retropie setup. I eventually settled on a Logitech F310, betting the Logitech F310 on Retropie would make a nice combination based on my experience with other Logitech peripherals in regards to their quality and value for the money.

The reviews I found suggested the F310 continued in this tradition, and I found enough people who said they got it working with Linux to feel confident I could get it working on the Raspberry Pi. And sure enough, I did.

I paid $18 for mine, and my first impressions of the quality were good. It’s precise, and button pushes register with a slight click. It’s no worse than a Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo controller, and if anything, I think I liked it a little better. A pair of Logitech F310s costs more than the Raspberry Pi board, but playing games is a lot more enjoyable when the controller does what you want it to do all the time, not just most of the time.

The F310 wasn’t a drop-in replacement for the controller I’d been using, though. I had to configure it for Retroarch, the software that provides most of Retropie’s console emulation.

Read more

And… Introducing the Raspberry Pi Model B+

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , ,

No wonder the Raspberry Pi Model B was on sale. The day after I bought mine, the Model B+ hit the streets, at the same price of $35. Same CPU, same memory, but the board layout is much nicer–cables come out of three sides now instead of all four, which makes placement much less awkward–and it now comes with four USB ports instead of just two, so you can connect a keyboard and mouse and still have ports available for other things without having to plug in a clunky USB hub.

It’s an incremental improvement, but there’s definitely the potential to build stuff with it that looks more refined than the predecessor. I’m sure I’ll use one on my next Raspberry Pi project, and there will be another one. If not 12.

Setting up Retropie on the Raspberry Pi

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing , , , , , , , , , , ,

I bought a Raspberry Pi over the weekend intending to turn it into a retro gaming system. I’d rather not have a mess of systems and cartridges out for my kids to tear up and to constantly have to switch around at their whims; a deck-of-cards-sized console with everything loaded on a single SD card seems much more appealing.

I followed Lifehacker’s writeup, which mostly worked. My biggest problem was my controllers. NES and SNES games would freeze seemingly at random, which I later isolated to trying to move to the left. It turned out my Playstation-USB adapter didn’t get along with the Pi at all, and was registering the select and start buttons when I tried to move certain directions, pausing the game.

When I switched to a Retrolink SNES-style pad, the random pausing went away. The precision reminded me of the really cheap aftermarket controllers of yore for the NES and SNES. I concluded my controller, which I bought used, was worn out. Ultimately I ended up switching to a Logitech controller, which worked well. Read more

I don’t want my light bulbs on the Internet

Dave Farquhar security , ,

I heard this week that the first vulnerability in smart light bulbs has been discovered–they can leak your wifi password.

I suppose I can take comfort in the cost of the bulbs–they cost $129, which means not a lot of people will have them, in a world where people complain about paying $5 for an LED bulb. Then again, for $129, I think it’s reasonable to expect a little bit of security. This isn’t a $15 router with a $2 profit margin. To its credit, the manufacturer immediately issued a patch to fix the vulnerability.

The problem with devices like these with security vulnerabilities is that they will be around a very long time. Read more

Computer, how old are you?

Dave Farquhar Windows , , ,

Yesterday I wrote about finding old computers. Here’s how I determine how old a computer is.

There’s a registry key called HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\InstallDate that stores the system build time in Unix format (the number of seconds since 1 January 1970) and hexadecimal. With a few mad skilz you can make that data human-readable.

Read more

Hard drive longevity and you (or your business)

Dave Farquhar Hardware

I can’t believe I’ve never written about the Backblaze hard drive longevity study, but apparently I haven’t. At work we’re running up against the limitations of hard drives, so it’s good to know this kind of stuff.

Here’s what you need to know: Hard drives fail very early or very late. If a drive lasts more than a few days–which is why burning in new equipment is important–only 5% of them fail in their first 18 months. Then, for the next 18 months, only 1.5% fail. Golden years! At age 3, though, failure rates jump to 11.8% and stay there. So keeping hard drives much longer than 4 years is generally asking for trouble. 78% of drives live to age 4, but at that age the annual failure rate is very high.

This is Backblaze’s experience under specific and somewhat peculiar conditions, but it’s not far off at all from what I’ve observed.

Keep in mind this is the average. Every maker has made incredibly bad drives, and all of them who are left have made drives better than the average too. I don’t know why they go on hot and cold streaks, but they do, and they always have. That’s why some people think any given brand of drives are the best and others think the same brand are junk. With a little luck, you can buy one brand of drive and have all of them be spectacular, or with a little bad luck, buy different models of the same brand and have them all fail a day after the warranty expires. Read more

Listen to this if you think a router makes you invincible

Dave Farquhar security , , , ,

One myth that I hear over and over is that having a router on your Internet connection makes you invisible, and makes you somehow invincible. I even heard someone say recently that if you have a router/firewall, you don’t need to run antivirus software.

Security researcher HD Moore appeared last week on Risky Business and he talked about ways that entire classes of routers can be compromised. Give it a listen. Read more

The phantom tech worker shortage

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized , , , ,

I saw a story yet again about the tech worker shortage, and the backlash against H1-B visas. Reading the comments on Slashdot, I increasingly got the feeling the shortage is a mirage. The people are out there, but the matchups with job openings aren’t happening.

My experience may be anecdotal, but it mirrors this. Read more

The Tampa Post on “Windows Service Center” scams

Dave Farquhar scams , ,

The Tampa Post’s technology Q&A columnist received a letter this weekend (toward the bottom of the link) about Windows tech support scammers. From the article:

The people performing the hoax sound remarkably professional and officious.

Depending on what you say to them, results vary a lot. When they call me, they’re anything but professional. Especially lately. They seem to be OK when they don’t think they’re talking to a computer professional. Mention that you do this for a living, that you have an advanced certification, or that you wrote a book, and they turn vicious fast. Read more